Lee Street used to be known as Water Street, the location of the original waterline where the Potomac River met the colonial wilderness that would eventually become Alexandria. Looking east from the intersection of Lee Street and King Street last Friday, one could catch a glimpse of the past as heavy rains late last week left a foot of standing water at the intersection of King Street and Union Street.
“We were closed about two hours on Friday afternoon,” said Hanna Taye, shift supervisor at the Starbucks at the southeast corner of the intersection. “This happens about three times a year. It is a little frustrating because we have to move all the merchandise to higher ground.”
The city’s high-tech monitoring sensors indicated potential problems on Friday morning. Immediately, the Department of Transportation and Environmental Services went into action — sending officials on foot to warn businesses in threatened area and delivering hundreds of sandbags. Rich Baier, director of the department, said that this particular area floods frequently because it is below the 100-year floodplain.
“The 100 year floodplain doesn’t mean it floods every year, it means that every year, it has a 1 percent chance of flooding,” said Baier. “It was what we would term nuisance flooding.”
The repeated flooding on lower King Street is one of the reasons the city is conducting an ongoing study — with the participation of businesses threatened by the persistent flooding — to examine what the possible solutions are within the historic area to mitigate flooding.
“I don’t think we’ll ever totally solve it because we have structures that are below the 100-year floodplain,” said Baier. “Some of the businesses have installed a flood gate, so I think that’s one possible solution.”